In prior art, typically a cartoon image of a person, is created by hand, by an artist or a draftsman, who may work from a photograph or from a live model, to exaggerate certain features of a person's face or body and obtain a cartoon image. The process is most often done using either pen and paper or image-handling software. The coloring of the image is altered, and the artist may choose the background of the image, to obtain a maximal satirized effect.
If computerized images are to be created using image-handling software (e.g. Photoshop®, manufactured by Adobe®), the draftsman nevertheless must draw on-screen in free-hand, or must instruct the software repeatedly where to place the contours of the image, how to change the colors, how to resize the image, etc. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,351,265 to Bulman, requires a user to demarcate the head of the image by selecting several reference points such as chin or neck, and the user must resize the head manually, if necessary (see examples 2, 3, 5). There is no enablement in U.S. Pat. No. 6,351,265 for automatically performing these steps without user intervention.
Prior art software requires a user to circle or mark the borders of the face onscreen, using computer peripherals such as a mouse or computer-related pen. Other prior art software requires the user to select the general face shape of the digital photo, from a database of facial shapes, in order to perform the “cut and paste”. The disadvantage of the prior art facial shape database method, lies in the multitude of inexact results, since often the face will be inaccurately cut off, leaving an uneven and unprofessional result.
There is a need for simple and effective systems, methods, and computer program products, for an exact extraction of faces from images.